Exploring Roguelike Games Book 9780367513726, 9780367482596, 9781003053576
381 144 31MB
English Pages [556] Year 2020
Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Contents
Notes on the Text
About the Author
1 An Introduction to Some Rogues
1.1 “Is That a Computer Game or Bad ASCII Art?”
1.2 “But It Helped Me Last Time!”
1.3 Part Hack and Slash, Part Scientific Method
Section I Basics
2 What the Hell Does Q Do Again?
2.1 Behold the Wonders of vi
2.2 News (or Rather, Keys) You Can Use
3 A View of the Field
3.1 Cats vs. Dogs, Joel vs. Mike, NetHack vs. Angband
4 Tips for Travel in Gridland
4.1 About Diagonals
4.2 About Doors
4.3 Dealing with Missile Users and Spellcasters
4.4 Dealing with Wand Users
4.5 About Speed
4.6 Escape, Regeneration and Loops
5 Brought to You Today by the Letter “Q”
5.1 First Problem: There Are Only 26 Letters
5.2 Second Problem: Finding Monsters for the Less-Common Letters
5.3 Sources
6 Check and Mate
6.1 Permadeath Defined
6.2 Critical Moments
6.3 Fleeing
6.4 Items
6.5 The First Law of Roguelikes
6.6 Situational Danger and Improving State
6.7 Cockatrices
6.7.1 Medusa
6.7.2 High-Level Magic Users
6.8 Ray Users
Section II Theory
7 The Berlin Interpretation
7.1 High Value Factors
7.1.1 Random Environment Generation
7.2 Permadeath
7.2.1 Turn-Based
7.2.2 Grid-Based
7.2.3 Non-Modal
7.2.4 Complexity
7.2.5 Resource Management
7.2.6 Hack’n’slash
7.2.7 Exploration and Discovery
7.3 Low Value Factors
7.3.1 Single Player Character
7.3.2 Monsters Are Similar to Players
7.3.3 Tactical Challenge
7.3.4 ASCII Display
7.3.5 Dungeons
7.3.6 Numbers
8 Roguelikes and OD&D
8.1 That Roguelike Feeling
8.2 Seriously, Prankster Wizards
8.3 “Storytelling” in Roguelikes
9 Storytelling, Bah!
10 Pushing the Silver Boulder
10.1 Ever Since I Was a Young Boy, I’ve Played the Silver Ball
10.2 A Little History of Pinball
10.3 Basics of Pinball
10.4 Williams Mutual: Invest in Our Portfolio of Bumpers and Ramps
10.5 The Point of Impulse, Described and Examined
10.6 From Dendrite to Finger Muscle
10.7 Vector A + Vector B + Vector C -> Outlane
11 I Never Meta Rogue I Didn’t Like
11.1 Remembering Dragons, Beloved Developers and the Whole Wide World
11.2 Civic Improvement through Reincarnation
11.3 “Oh Darn, It’s ‘Kill the Hero Day’ in the Dungeons of Doom”
11.4 But Really, Why Is That So Cool?
11.5 But Really Really, Why Is This So Cool?
Section III NetHack
12 Giant Eel Stories, Volume 1
12.1 Nightshade, Chaotic Female Elven Wizard, March 20, 2002, played by nyra
12.2 Ciompi259, Neutral Male Human Tourist, February 22, 2004, played by Robert R. Schneck
12.3 Glossary of rec.games.roguelike.nethack Terms
12.4 Acknowledgments
13 Giant Eel Stories, Volume 2
13.1 Edward, Chaotic Male Elven Wizard Extinctionist, Ascended, played by Matthew E. Bourland
13.2 Patito, Neutral Male Gnomish Healer Pacifist, Ascended, played by Andreas Dorn
13.3 Zadir, Neutral Female Human Priest, Killed by Overexertion, played by legopowa
14 Thou Art Early, but We’ll Admit Thee
14.1 Death by Inches
14.2 Death by Logic
14.3 Deadly Reading
14.4 The Most Obscure Death
15 I Believe It Not!
15.1 Strange Objects
15.1.1 Sinks
15.1.2 Shirts
15.1.3 Graves
15.2 Fortunes
15.3 The Rogue Level
15.4 Cultural Borrowings
15.5 Coyotes
15.6 Incidental Messages
15.7 Hallucination Messages
15.8 Shocking the Gods
16 How to Win at NetHack
16.1 Recognize How Safe You Are at the Start of the Game
16.2 Do Not Give the Game Excuses to Kill You
16.3 Build the Essential Intrinsics as Soon as Possible
16.4 Learn the Most Dangerous Monsters
16.5 Build Equipment for Overcoming Game Obstacles
16.6 Know How to Deal with the Gods
16.7 Know What Is Safe to Eat
16.8 Learn about Elbereth
16.9 Use Some Identification Tricks
16.10 Make the Most of Your Pets
16.11 Know How to Deal with Shops
16.12 Be Aware of Special Areas
16.13 Other Things
17 Spoiled for Options
17.1 A Question with No Right Answer? Well Actually
17.2 “So It’s Great, but I’m Still Not Sold . . .”
17.3 The Guiltless Confession
17.4 “My Valkyrie Puts All Her Skill Points into ‘Google Lore’!”
18 Hack Hacks
18.1 Color Alchemy
18.2 Enhanced Artifacts
18.3 Biodiversity
18.4 Grudge
18.5 Pet Ranged Attack
18.6 New Bigrooms, New Castles, New Medusa Lairs, New Sokoban Levels
18.7 Heck
19 A Quick Look at the NetHack Sources
19.1 GCC Hits! Your Brain Is Eaten!
19.2 “NetHack Contains Everything Including the Kitchen Sink,” Eh? Not Anymore, Fool!
19.3 At Last We Can Add Godzilla as a Monster
19.4 That’s How . . . But Why?
19.5 Knowing What Not to Change
20 Balancing a Game That Looks Balanceless
20.1 Wishing for Wishes
20.2 Nurse Dancing
20.3 Polypiling
20.4 Succubus Dancing
20.5 Current Problems
20.5.1 Pudding Farming
20.5.2 Pestilence Farming
21 SLASH’EM: NetHack Intensified
21.1 Beyond the Kitchen Sink
21.2 The Dungeon Is Beta Software, Features May Be More Awesome Than Your Universe Will Allow
21.3 More?
21.4 Even More?
21.5 Dear God, Still More?
21.6 But Why?
21.7 Source
22 Ten Years of the dev/null NetHack Tournament, Part 1
22.1 Things Most People Can Win
22.2 Things Experienced ‘Hackers Can Win
22.3 Things Really Good Players Can Win
22.4 Things the Very Best Can Win
22.5 Things marvin Can Win
22.6 Things You Won’t Want to Win
23 Ten Years of the dev/null NetHack Tournament, Part 2
Section IV Dungeon Crawl
24 Before Learning to Walk, One Must First Crawl
24.1 Shrek Ain’t Too Happy to See Me
24.2 More Early Bullies of the Dungeon
24.3 Roadmap to Monsterland
24.4 Tips for Identification, Conservation, Mastication and Eradication
24.5 Seventh Floor: Housewares, Home Appliances, Customer Service, and Geryon, Gatekeeper of Hell
25 Crawl: Skills and Advancement
25.1 Crawl’s Experience System
25.2 Race, Class, Stats and Deity: The Four Facts of Crawl Existence
25.3 How Crawl Steers Characters along Their Path
26 Crawl: Skill Overview
26.1 Overall Skills: Fighting and Spellcasting
26.2 Weapon Skills: Short Blades, Long Blades, Axes, Polearms, Maces & Flails, Unarmed Combat
26.3 Missile Skills: Bows, Crossbows, Slings, Darts and Throwing
26.4 Miscellaneous Skills: Stabbing, Stealth, Dodge, Armor, Shields, Traps & Doors, Invocations and Evocations
26.5 Primary Magic Skills: Conjurations, Summonings, Enchantments, Translocation, Transmutation, Divination, Necromancy, Poison Magic
26.6 Elemental Magic Skills: Fire Magic, Ice Magic, Air Magic, Earth Magic
27 Crawl: Interesting Class and Race Pairs
27.1 Some Words about Engines and Recommended Classes
27.2 Spriggan Enchanter
27.3 Deep Dwarf Paladin
27.4 Hill Orc Priest
27.5 Human Wanderer
27.6 Minotaur Chaos Knight of Xom
28 Crawl: Travel Functions and Play Aids
28.1 O: Auto-Explore
28.2 Shift-X and Ctrl-G: Level Search and Autotravel
28.3 Ctrl-F: Stash Management
28.4 Other Player Helps
29 Crawl: Dungeon Sprint
29.1 On Choices: Map, Race and Role
29.2 Sprint: Dungeon Crawl Intensified
29.3 To Save a Few Dozen Lives: A Guide to the Early Rooms
Section V ADOM
30 ADOM, NetHack with a Goatee
30.1 The Guise of the Overworld
30.2 Our Very Special Quest Stars
30.3 For the Love of Purple ‘t’
30.4 Why Is the Trollish Warrior Fleeing from That Kitty-Cat?
30.5 Damnation by Degrees
30.6 The Bizarre Cathedral
31 Things to Do While Visiting Ancardia
31.1 Save a Puppy!
31.2 Make the Plains Safe for Adventurers!
31.3 Kill the Mad Carpenter! (or Cure His Madness)
31.4 Perform Last Rites for a Dying Sage! (or . . . .)
31.5 Collect . . . Um . . . Strange Items!
31.6 Source
32 Interview: Thomas Biskup on ADOM
32.1 Acknowledgments
Section VI Mystery Dungeon
33 The Delights of Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
33.1 Part 1: Why You Should Play This Game
33.2 Part 2: For New Players
33.3 Sources
34 Architecture of the Mystery Dungeon
34.1 Mysterious Lineage
34.2 The Afterlife Looks Familiar
34.3 Level 3 Town, with Population 750 and 40 Hit Points
35 Fei’s Problems
36 Taloon’s Mystery Dungeon, in Great Detail
36.1 Acknowledgments
37 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 1
37.1 Overview
37.1.1 Field Raider
37.1.2 Kimen-Musha and Ghost Musha
37.1.3 Peetan
37.1.4 Minion of Death
38 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 2
38.1 Skeleton Mage
38.2 Dark Owl
38.3 Kid Tank
38.4 Pumkorepkin
38.5 Debuta
38.6 Healer Rabbit
39 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 3
39.1 Flame Priest
39.2 Norojo
39.3 Kigni Tribe
39.4 Soldier Ant
40 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 4
40.1 Gyazar
40.2 Master Chicken
40.3 Minotaur
40.4 Norojo’s Big Sister
40.5 Karakuroid
Section VII Various Roguelikes
41 Angband: At Last!
41.1 The Journey of a Hundred Levels
41.2 Because a Game Called “Valinor” Would Be Boring
41.3 Ancient Foes Compared: Angband vs. NetHack
41.4 “You Enter a Maze of Down Staircases . . .”
41.5 The Game with the Vaunted Vaults
41.6 Source
42 Cause for Incursion
42.1 Inexpensive Timeshares Now Available in the Caves of Carnage
42.2 Missing Fingers Surprisingly Reluctant to Grow Back
42.3 Not Exactly a DM’s Guide Put through a Compiler . . . .
42.4 15 Minutes to Roll Up, 5 Minute Life Expectancy
42.5 “The Key Does Not Fit That Horse!”
42.6 “Congratulations, Mortal! You Have Won thBRRGG^^&#-General Protection Fault at $0CFF3E”
42.7 Supplemental: What Is Vancian Magic, and How Does It Apply to Dungeons & Dragons and/or Roguelikes?
43 Brogue and the Abandoning of Experience Points
43.1 Brogue Has Removed Experience Levels from the Game?!
43.2 Variety and Continuity of Play State
43.3 “I Am Better Than You, I Have a Higher Score!”
43.4 More Reading
44 HyperRogue
44.1 Lessons in Non-Euclidean Travel
44.2 Your Passport Is Printed on a Mobius Strip
44.3 There Are No Snake Enemies on the Hyperbolic Plane
44.4 To Show Your Vacation Slides You’ll Have to Use a Poincaré Projector
44.5 Further Reading
45 Super-Rogue, Banished to the Deeper Dungeons
45.1 History of the Early Games
45.2 How Games Become Lost
45.3 Please Contribute Today to the Save the Umber Hulk Foundation
45.4 The Vrock’s in the Details
45.5 Playing Super-Rogue Today
46 XRogue Has Not Yet Ceased to Be
46.1 People Come in Different Flavors, but Dragons Are Not Picky Eaters
46.2 The Stuff That Games Are Made Of
46.3 Here Be Dragons . . . and a Selection of Five Other Monsters, Chosen Randomly
46.4 In the Outer Region . . . We Control the Horticulture! We Control the Vertebrates!
46.5 You’d Think a Stone Dungeon Would Be Sturdier . . . .
47 Larn, or, I Hocked the Car to Buy a Lance of Death
47.1 The Taxonomy of Larn
47.2 The Solution to All Your Monster Needs! Easy Installment Plan: One Installment, You Pay Now
47.3 Larn Gameplay FAQ
47.3.1 Where Do I Get It From?
47.3.2 What Are the Basic Keys?
47.3.3 I Started a Game and Now I’m in a Field with a Bunch of Numbers. What Does This Mean?
47.3.4 How Do I Enter a Store/the Dungeon/the Bank/Whatever?
47.3.5 The Messages at the Bottom of the Screen Seem Not to Make Any Sense, Is There Something Wrong With Them?
47.3.6 Why Does My Inventory Consist of Five “a Magic Scroll”s and Four “a Magic Potion”s?
47.3.7 I Went Up/Down a Circular Staircase, but When I Came Out the Other Side I Wasn’t at the Stairs from the Previous Level! How Come?
47.3.8 I’ve Found All These Rings and Things, but I Can’t Find Any Way to Put Them on! Help!
47.3.9 What Are These Statues, Thrones, Mirrors and Altars Good for?
47.3.10 What Is This Rectangular Region with the Door on One Edge?
47.3.11 What Do I Do with the Books and Chests?
47.3.12 How Do Spells Work?
47.3.13 A Scroll of Gem Perfection? What Does That Do?
47.3.14 I’ve Been Teleported, but Now the Dungeon Level Is Listed As “?,” What Gives?
47.3.15 I’ve Made It to Level 10 of the Dungeon but I’m Being Attacked for Major Damage by Something I Can’t See!
47.3.16 If I’m Just Going After It for Money to Buy the Lance of Death, Do I Really Have to Get the Eye of Larn?
47.3.17 Any Other Tips?
47.3.18 Hey, I Just Won, but on the Next Game I Didn’t Start with Any Equipment, and I Got a Message about Taxes! What the Heck?
47.4 Acknowledgments
48 Hack’s Lost Brother
48.1 Genealogy of the Dungeons of Doom
48.2 Meet the Wizard of Yendor’s Lost Brother, Neil Yendor
48.3 “This Corridor Seems Dusty. [More] Perhaps If You Cleaned More Often?”
48.4 Plays Great—Less Taxing
48.5 Sources
49 Interview: Keith Burgun on 100 Rogues
50 Interview: Josh Ge on Cogmind
50.1 What Is Cogmind?
50.2 Basic Stuff
50.3 Project Progress (Circa 2016)
50.4 Indie Business
50.5 The Game World
50.6 ASCII Graphics, in Its Own Way
50.7 Supporting Varied Gameplay
50.8 Advice for New Players
50.9 Acknowledgments
Section VIII Roguelites and Related Games
51 Pixel Journeys: dnd for PLATO
51.1 Introduction
51.2 Playing the Game
51.3 Beneath the Surface
51.4 What Can We Learn from dnd5?
51.5 Supplemental Information
51.6 Sources
52 ToeJam & Earl, the Roguelike That’s Not an RPG
52.1 That Evil Dentist Wouldn’t Be Laughing If I Had a Sword
52.2 The Dual Gandhis of Funk
52.3 But Is It a Roguelike? Point by Point
52.4 The Triumph of Sir Nose
53 Interview: Digital Eel on Infinite Space
54 Interview: Rodain Joubert on Desktop Dungeons
54.1 Dungeon Crawl and Desktop Dungeons
54.2 Platforms and Implementation
54.3 Design Process, Commercial Viability and Promotion
54.4 Difficulty and Humor
54.5 Links Relating to the Developer
55 Spelunky
55.1 Avoiding the Point
55.2 Spooky + Spelunky = Spelooky?
55.3 Somewhere, Izchak Miller Is Looking Down on Us, Smiling Maliciously
55.4 Raising Real Estate Values in the Caves
55.5 Spelunking Along, Singing a Song
55.6 Source
56 Exploring the Oasis
56.1 Basics
56.2 Followers, Roads and Mines
56.3 The Obelisk, the Oasis and the Nomads
56.4 Why We’re Talking about This Game Here
57 The Rescue of Meta-Zelda
57.1 The Legend of Zelda (Famicom/NES), Described
57.2 The Game That Defined Nintendo Hard
57.3 Now, about This Randomizer Thingy
57.4 Random Zelda Is Hard, but Strangely Fair
58 Space Peeing Out There
58.1 Hovering Above the Drain
58.2 There’s a Stuckies Ahead and They Have Helium
58.3 Looking Beyond to the Real Game
58.4 Tips for Getting Started Out There
59 Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom
59.1 Sources
60 DreamForge’s Dungeon Hack
60.1 “It Is Strong Magic That Can Point to Maps!”
60.2 The 2nd Edition D&D Class Reunion
60.3 The Environmental Persecution Agency
60.4 Dudgeons and Drag-Ons
Section VIV Design
61 The Eight Rules of Roguelike Design
62 Mapping the Infinite Cavern
62.1 Angband
62.2 NetHack
62.3 ADOM
62.4 Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
63 Purposes for Randomization in Game Design
63.1 Preserves Player Interest across Multiple Playthroughs
63.2 Provides Resistance to Spoilers
63.3 Challenges Player Deductive Skills
63.4 Escapes the Limits of Conventional Narration
63.5 Provides Complex Play through Combining of Basic Elements
64 Interface Aids and the Strategy Window
64.1 That’s Funny, So I Assume, but What’s This All About?
64.2 Against: Testing Knowledge and Thematic Danger
64.3 In Favor: Avoiding Unsatisfying Play and Maintaining Strategic Focus
64.4 Example: On the User Interface Helps of the Fire Emblem Series
64.5 Back to Roguelikes: DCSS and Brogue’s Autoexplore Features
65 Modeling Motion on a Dungeon Grid
65.1 The World Revolves Around Me
65.2 Wait . . . Do You Hear Ticking?
65.3 Special Cases
66 Rogue’s Item ID in Too Much Detail
66.1 Item ID, Fantasy Literature and AD&D
66.2 Item ID in Action
66.3 What They Did, and Didn’t
67 Item Design: Potions and Scrolls
67.1 The Justification for Treasure
67.2 Disposable Magic: One-Use Items
67.3 What Is the Functional Difference between Potions and Scrolls?
67.4 Potions
67.4.1 . . . of Healing (and Extra/Full Healing, Cure Light/Moderate/Serious Wounds, and so on)
67.4.2 . . . of Restore Ability
67.4.3 . . . of Gain Strength (and Other Stats, and Ability)
67.4.4 . . . of Gain Level
67.4.5 . . . of Poison (and Sickness)
67.4.6 . . . of (Something) Detection
67.4.7 . . . of Confusion, Blindness, Paralysis
67.4.8 . . . of Thirst Quenching (and Water, Holy Water and Unholy Water)
67.5 Scrolls
67.5.1 . . . of Identify
67.5.2 . . . of Enchant Weapon/Armor
67.5.3 . . . of Vorpalize Weapon
67.5.4 . . . of Confuse Monster
67.5.5 . . . of Scare Monster
67.5.6 . . . of Genocide
67.5.7 . . . of Maintain Armor
67.6 Sources
68 Towards Building a Better Dungeon
68.1 D&D Has Much More Interesting Traps than Roguelike Games
68.2 All Monsters Are, in Tactical Terms, the Same Size
68.3 Hidden Doors Are All Identical
68.4 Stairs Not Matching X and Y Positions between Levels
68.5 Item Identification Is Much Easier Than Classic D&D
68.6 Lack of Multiplayer
Section VV Miscellaneous
69 A Coward Dies a Thousand Deaths, but My Computer, Several Thousand
69.1 Rog-O-Matic: It Dies Over and Over So You Don’t Have To
69.2 Did Three of Eight Just Tell Sauron Resistance Is Futile?
70 Running Atari ST Rogue in 2016
70.1 Running Atari ST Rogue
70.1.1 Step 1: Download and Unpack the Atari ST Emulator STeem SSE
70.1.2 Step 2: Obtain the Atari ST Rogue Disk Image
70.1.3 Step 3: Running the Game
70.2 Getting Started with ST Rogue
70.3 Reasons to Play Atari ST Rogue
70.4 Acknowledgments
70.5 Further Reading
71 Rogue and Its Inspiration
71.1 Foundations of the Dungeon
71.2 But It’s So Hard
71.3 The Subterranean Arms Race: MAD (Mutually Assured Dragons)
72 The Rights to Rogue
72.1 Other Facts of Possible Interest
72.2 Sources
73 Some Recent Information
Index
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